- It may not be in Comic Sans font and it might not have the
same naïvely defiant air about it, but the open letter penned by Miami Heat
managing general partner Micky Arison to his team’s fans has a feint whiff of
the infamous note Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert wrote to his team’s
fans when LeBron James fled Cleveland for South Beach. Arison, whose team lost
star Dwyane Wade after 13 seasons and three championships with the franchise
and failed to sign any marquee free agents, released an open letter to the
team's fans, informing them he is confident they'll enjoy the upcoming season.
The letter was posted on the team’s official Twitter account a few hours after
the NBA schedule was released and tried to paint a rosy picture for a team that
has no chance of contending in the Eastern Conference. "Obviously, this
has been a challenging summer ... one with significant change," Arison
wrote. "For the first time in a long time, Dwyane Wade will not be part of
our team, but it will be a joyous homecoming when we someday hang his No. 3
jersey from the rafters." Arison tried to shift focus from a dim immediate
future to the past, referencing that in his 21 years leading the franchise,
there have been both highs and lows. And so, as (Heat president) Pat Riley has
said on numerous occasions, 'One of the only things you can count on in life
that is permanent is change,'" Arison wrote. Yes, change that will take
your team from also-ran in the East back to the pack of teams with zero title
hopes……….
- As always, at least there’s a good reason a person is now
dead and their family is left to struggle through life without them. Minneapolis
is the scene and the story is one of a man fatally shooting his neighbor in a
bizarrely escalating dispute over a lawnmower. Edward Holzinger is accused of
shooting his neighbor, Bruce Brown, near 15th Ave and Main Street NE in
Minneapolis. A normally quiet northeast Minneapolis neighborhood was turned
into the Wild West because according to police, Holzinger was upset with his
neighbor about a lawnmower. A police report says Holzinger loaned the lawnmower
to Brown, who allegedly returned it broken and inoperable. The two men then
spent several days having arguments about the lawnmower, culminating in a
showdown around 8:30 p.m., with Brown having a cookout with his family in their
backyard. The report claims that Brown sarcastically yelled out at Holzinger,
who was sitting on his porch, “Do you want a hamburger?” Because no one is
going to let a sarcastic hamburger remark go unchecked, Holzinger allegedly
shouted back, “Come over and find out.” Despite family members wisely urging
him to ignore the verbal challenge, Brown ignored those pleas and walked toward
Holzinger. A few seconds later, gunshots rang out and Brown fell to the ground,
having been shot twice in the chest. Brown’s niece attempted to stop the
bleeding, but an unrepentant Holzinger came over and said, “He deserved it. He
called me a pedophile. I know I’m going to jail and I don’t care.” Moments
later, Brown was pronounced dead on the sidewalk near his home and Holzinger
later confessed to the crime and has been charged with second-degree murder. Way
to keep things in perspective, guys………
- Its stars may end up appearing on the streets of Miami
chasing down suspects on their Jazzy power scooters, but the “Bad Boys”
franchise will not be silenced. There have already been two Bad Boys films,
including the original in 1995, and the third installment has now been given an
official title and release date. “Bad Boys for Life” will hit theaters in
January 2018, with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence once again playing the roles
of Miami detectives Burnett and Lowery, dealing with the thugs, low lives and
criminals of South Beach despite being 20-plus years past where they were when
they first burst onto the scene in their respective roles. The third film will
be different in that built-for-excess director Michael Bay, genetically
engineered to blow studios’ money with excessive pictures drowning in
explosions and special effects, won't be helming it. Bay directed the first two
Bad Boys movies, but will not return for the third - and fourth - films. That
honor will go to Joe Carnahan, who inherits a bloated, past-its-prime franchise
that seems like a cash grab and nothing more at this point. The fourth film is already
in the works as well, set to debut about a year and a half after the third
movie. Calling the next one “Bad Boys for Life” sounds like more of a threat
than a promise, as if we’re going to be seeing Smith and Lawrence collecting
Social Security checks, playing shuffleboard and trying to solve crimes in the
retirement home before anyone is willing to pull the plug on this franchise. But
hell, it’s always best to keep making movies in a series until you’re 1,000
percent sure that there is less than no life left in them………
- You can impose a strict curfew and attempt to curtail dissidence
in Indian-controlled Kashmir, but you cannot keep the people from making their
voices heard. Authorities in Kashmir have extended a strict curfew to most
parts of the region, but their efforts could not stop the rage as separatist
leaders called for weekend protests against Indian rule. It was a thrilling
scene as government troops in armored vehicles patrolled the streets seeking to
thwart any attempt by protesters in Srinagar to march to the city's commercial
center, squaring off against Kashmiris trying to march to a historic square
over the weekend to demand a referendum to decide the future of the region.
They did so at the behest of separatist leaders who challenge India's
sovereignty over Kashmir and want to see the people given a chance to decide
who will govern them. With the military on one side and dissidents on the
other, all against the backdrop of that curfew, protests erupted at about eight
places in the city and at two especially combative locations, police and
paramilitary soldiers fired tear gas and shotgun pellets to stop rock-throwing
protesters. Throwing rocks is at the simplistic end of the continuum when it
comes to methods of conveying rage by protestors, but not everyone has the
recipe for a quality Molotov cocktail. Despite the tear gas, pellets and rocks,
there were no immediate reports of injuries in the clashes, but this fight is a
long way from over……….
No comments:
Post a Comment